Dell Precision 7540 and 7740 Owner's Thread

My 7540 arrives today. I have opted for the long life battery. I think the battery carries a different part number and probably has a different controller inside for prolonged-life oriented charge-discharge behaviour.

It will be disappointing if Dell disables ExpressCharge via motherboard or BIOS version or some type of system identifier, denying me of future upgrade to an battery capable of the same.

 

Problem fixed, it turned out that the ram needed to be inserted in a specific way that i have not tried before. Micron kit under the keyboard, samsung one on the bottom side.
It was recognized the first time and the laptop also successfully shut down and turned on multiple times whereas previously i could only start it the first time and get the led code for "Invalid memory" on every consecutive boot.

Ran multiple benchmarks and all passed without any problems, so did the memtest.
As for the numbers i wasn't able to find any in the thread, is this CB score in line with what i should be getting?

 

Looking at that image again, I dare say that part of the RTX 4000 card might actually be meant to go beneath the motherboard. See the strange outline of the bottom of the card: those correspond to the screws on the motherboard side:


The DGFF in the 7530 (and, I presume, the 7540 too) is slightly lower than the motherboard itself:


The only thing left now are the display output ports, and the position of the silicon package itself, which appears to be slightly closer to the back frame.

One might be able to fit this in a 7530, with a few “extensions” to the cables so that the ports come out of the holes in the frame...

 

If you take a close look at the PCBs pictured in that post, each one is marked as ver1.0, just like this Quadro P3200 and the PSU card.

Spoiler

Would it possibly indicate that the RTX4000 is rather an ES?

If the RTX4000 is to fit in the same chassis, especially for the HDMI cutout, the new card will actually be above the current MB. But there is no obvious pillars on the bottom (left) or on the back of the middle frame (right).

Spoiler

 

I don't see how this could work. I guess the PCB could slide underneath the motherboard — there are no components on the board "past" the DGFF connectors — except the HDMI connector which would definitely not fit under the board. So they would have had to have created a different variant of the motherboard that has a "cut-out" for that port.

 

I'm thinking on setting the laptop with 64GB of RAM as well.

Out of curiosity did you buy that RAM as a single 4x16 pack? Or two 2x16 packs?
I'm also wondering if it's safest to avoid a 2x32. The idea for this would be to upgrade years later to 128GB, but the risk of incompatible RAM is there.

Do you think there is much of a difference between HyperX Impact CL15 and Corsair Vengeance CL18? Both at 2666MHz
I'm not going to overclock the system. Stability and accuracy (no flip bits) is the most important.

 

I searched this thread for refresh and the only relevant message was

Can anyone confirm this? And does this apply to the UltraSharp FHD too? Sadly Dell's webpage lacks in information.

So I'm thinking on buying a monitor.. Don't have one and gott'a test those laptop ports
Is there any advantage in going for a computer monitor with a higher refresh rate than it? Or will I be capped to 60Hz?
My use case is the following:
- use the Intel iGPU to do any rendering
- use the nVidia dGPU to do computing (for Cuda). But eventually use nVidia dGPU if I can get GPU passthrough working (for windows gaming)
- I'll be running Linux

 

The information regarding the 1080p panels is correct.
You can install an eDP panel with higher refresh rate and it should work. People have gotten 120 Hz panels working in prior Precision systems without hassle. (You may need to disable graphics switching in the BIOS so that the NVIDIA GPU will be running everything. I'm not sure if the Intel GPU can run higher than 60 Hz.)

If you are talking about an external monitor then you are fine. If you attach it to the rear mDP or HDMI port then it will be running off of the dGPU no matter what. The NVIDIA GPU can certainly push a high-refresh rate display.

 

Yes I meant external monitor.

Can't find that info either. It's amazing how bad Intel is when it comes to docs.
It does 4k@60Hz but doesn't specify the limit at 1080p.
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...9850h-processor-12m-cache-up-to-4-60-ghz.html
https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www...n-intel-processors/intel-hd-graphics-630.html

I did find a couple of threads on reddit saying they had it at 120Hz.

What about the thunderbolt port? Would it use the iGPU or the dGPU?

Assuming it uses the iGPU, then can the intel card output to the laptop screen at 60Hz and an external screen at 120 or 144Hz? I'm guessing it won't Well not the end of the world for sure. Been using 60Hz and no problems.
And a related question, can the intel card display to the laptop screen at 1080p but display to the external monitor at 4k? Or a different resolution for that matter, as it seems larger screens do have "non standard" resolutions (eg: 2560x1440)

Thanks

 

If it does 4K 60 Hz, by straightforward mathematics, one would expect that at 1080p (quarter resolution of 4K), it is likely to drive such a panel at up to 60 × 4 = 240 Hz.

Best to try. That said, there aren't any great high-resolution panels that will fit in the 7540, by virtue of the fact that 4K panel that Dell uses, the Sharp LQ156D1 panel, has a 40-pin, 0.4mm pin pitch, whereas most of the good 144 Hz panels have 0.5mm pin pitch. This, of course, might change, because I am not sure that Dell has continued to use the same Sharp panel in the 7540.

I own an AUO B156HAN10.0 panel that is 1080p 144 Hz, has a 1000:1 contrast ratio and is 10-bit, but I can't install it yet as the cable that Dell provided simply doesn't fit. You might consider the BOE NV156FHM-N4B or the Chi Mei Innolux N156HHE-GA1. Both are high-refresh rate (former is 144 Hz IPS, latter is 120 Hz TN) and use the same 30-pin interface that your current FHD panel ought to use.

However, I have my doubts about both. As for the former: BOE is known to have PWM problems, and it is fairly intriguing that they are using a 30-pin interface as even though the competition uses 40 pins. As for the latter, it has been widely appreciated for its colour quality, and yet it still is a TN panel. For notebooks, having a TN panel is a deal-breaker: notebooks hinge about the axis where there is greatest colour shifting—I couldn't really care that you could see such a panel from 60° away from the normal; I do care that tilting the display up or down a little changes the colour by a lot.

There are also political opinions in the matter, as BOE is based in mainland China, whereas CMN, AUO, LG, Samsung, and Sharp are Taiwanese, Korean, or Japanese.